style="font-family: tahoma;">Quest Guide: The Church and The Cult

by Khalas
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Welcome to the church and the cult!
This is a fairly popular quest for the possible end items that can be
pulled. With a good party and some planning this quest is very
enjoyable with a show down between your forces and a powerful vampire
at the end. To set up fighter types should bring forth silver
weapons as well as ghost touch. Casters should bring fire wall,
scorching ray, magic missile, resist energy, and protection from
evil. Clerics should make sure to bring
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=463">searing
light, nimbus of light, and of course healing spells. Rogues
are in heavy demand here as there are a large number of traps and the
damage will wear on you.

The most important thing to remember about fighting vampires is that
they are vulnerable to silver weapons. Ideally, you will
want a silver weapon. Also remember that just because you have
the appropriate type for your weapon, it doesn't mean a vampire won't
be wearing armor or have a spell cast upon him or her that has another
type of damage reduction. The smart undead mastermind wears
adamantine armor to offset the opponents who bring silver and other
types of weapons.

href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album64&id=Vamp_Map&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
alt="Church and Cult Map"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album64/Vamp_Map.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 261px;" align="right">Upon
entering you'll find a door that leads into a church area. The NPCs
here won't do much but talking to the priest will open the left hand
wall revealing an arcane blackbone. He'll almost always
cast cloudkill before you take him out. After dealing with him
you'll move through the opening he came out of and face an apprentice
of vol.
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=203">Phantasmal
killer is really good for taking these guys out at a distance but
your tanks won't have much trouble with him either way. The right
hand wall here is a secret door with a very low difficulty check you'll
need to open to progress.

Once you go through the secret door you'll go down a small hallway
littered with wraiths and vol cultists. Pace yourself and they'll
go down in easy to manage groups. At the end of the hallway
you'll encounter some blackbone thralls and turn right. After
turning right pay attention to the far wall directly in front of you.
There is a hidden door with a shrine behind it. You're probably
not dying for a shrine by now so feel free to save it. There is a
vol cultist behind the door so be careful.

To the left of the shrine is the passage into a large area with a book
in the center. Be careful of the spike trap here. The book room will
have some cultists, apprentices, and possibly the named cultist Leinar
Moonwillow. Funny thing about Moonwillow.....very vulnerable to
phantasmal killer. Read the book and the doors on the left and
right walls will open up. It's your choice which side you go down first.

href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album64&id=Vamp_shrine&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
alt="Shrine"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album64/Vamp_shrine.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 166px;" align="left">Going
down the right side presents you with a large number of ice
traps. Winter wolves and the ever present cultists and
apprentices guard the hallway. The ice traps and the breath
attack from the wolves present a problem unless you have resist
cold. Wall of fire will work wonders in this hallway as it is
fairly narrow and you can easily bottle enemies into tight areas.
The hallway is also very linear with only one direction to go in.

At the end of it you'll find a wooden door that leads to a large room
with lots of ice blasts from the ground and the some spinning spike
traps. Be careful, these two environmental hazards combined can
very quickly reduce a party to bits of tattered parts. There is a
trap box for the spikes just outside the door on the left side.
Inside the room is the named ice mephit. Element of Risia and his
mephit pals. You'll also face some blackbone thralls in
here. Hit the rune on the far wall to spawn them. Also on
the right wall near the entrance there is a hidden door that
leads to a shrine. Use it if you are low and move on.

Going down the left side you'll encounter a number of fire traps so
either have a rogue scout ahead or cast resist fire and prepare to heal
if needed. You'll face some cultists and apprentices backed by
dread zombies as fodder. The fighting isn't that hard but it
can't be stressed how surprisingly painful the fire traps can be.
If you have a rogue this is a good way to rack up the neutralization
bonus. The hallway is pretty linear so you'll come to a wooden
door that leads into a fire pit. The Element of Fernia is in here
with his mephit buddies. The Element of Fernia is in fact just a
buffed fire mephit. Resist fire and protection from fire will
de-claw these guys, so to speak, though there are a lot of them.
Hit the rune on the far wall and head back to the book room.

Once both the fire and ice hallways have been conquered the door in the
center wall of the book room will open. This leads to the vampire
Adrian Karsmore himself. Of course it's not quite that
simple. The hallway you must go down has a score of force traps
along with wraiths, cultists, and of course apprentices. There is
no resist force, so either disable them or avoid them as best you
can. Fortunately the enemies are also damaged by the
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=144">traps.
At the end of the hallway you'll find a shut gate leading to a large
room with a few more enemies similar to that in the hall way
inside. Take them out and then get your battle faces on cause
it's vampire killing time.
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album64&id=Vamp_Leutinant&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
alt="Moonwillow"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album64/Vamp_Leutinant.jpg"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 250px; height: 208px;" align="right">

Adrian Karsmore is in a gated room to the left of the one you are now
in. Everyone in the party should have protection from evil and
resist fire if possible. Open the gate and charge forth into
battle. Adrian will try and stun you with domination unless you
have the protection from evil. He'll also cast flame strike
and do a melee attack that steals hit points from you and gives it to
him. At first you want to just beat on him until he turns into a
pack of wolves. You'll need to quickly dispatch them and he'll
reform for the real fight.

Fighter types should close in on him and beat on him. Do your
best to box him in if you can. Casters should lay into him with
every spell under the sun. Wall of fire will counter act his
impressive regeneration while you lay into him with your fastest damage
dealing spells. Clerics and bards should cast cure spells on him
as they will damage undead. Clerics also have flame strike of
their own and more importantly searing light. Searing light can
seriously ruin Adrian's day as he is vulnerable to light spells.
The cheaper and faster nimbus light is also a good one to hit him
with.

You want to avoid moving around a lot as that can cause him to go into
his much hated bat form and disappear. While he's in the form of
several bats he can't be attacked but is still regenerating. This
is very frustrating as his regeneration is truly amazing. Stick
together and stay still to get him to stay humanoid and
vulnerable. Despite his impressive fortitude he will slowly but
surely lose hit points so long as you're pouring on the damage.
His armor class is also to be admired and many melee fighters will need
all the buffs they can get to land a blow. Once he does finally
bite the dust, so to speak, you can breath a sigh of relief and plunder
his two chests!

The chest on the right is the one to watch as some nice named items
come out of there. The Silver Bow in particular is a very nice long bow
with improved stats in the crit range and damage dice it also does holy
damage. The Bloodplate (+2 deathblock full plate), Cloak of
Shadows (+7 hide +7 move silent, +2 protection), and Fragment of
the Silver Flame (protection from evil) are all very nice items as
well. Loot the chests then talk to Lightbringer for your reward!

About The Author

Karen is H.D.i.C. (Head Druid in Charge) at EQHammer. She likes chocolate chip pancakes, warm hugs, gaming so late that it's early, and rooting things and covering them with bees. Don't read her Ten Ton Hammer column every Tuesday. Or the EQHammer one every Thursday, either.